Toward his Audience. The speaker who is persuasive is always courteous and even complimentary. Lincoln said, "I always assume that my audiences are in many things wiser than I am, and I say the most sensible thing I can to them. I never found that they did not understand me." The persuasive speaker feels and expresses confidence in the ability and willingness of his hearers to do what he urges them to do. Napoleon's address to his soldiers breathes confidence in every line.

Again, the persuasive speaker expresses his views with moderation in order that he may not arouse unnecessary antagonism on the part of those who differ from him. Coleridge expresses the need of such moderation when he says, "Truth is a good dog, but beware of barking too closely at the heels of error, lest you get your brains kicked out." Reading Lesson X, 3 furnishes an example of a mild statement of the speaker's position

calculated to allay prejudice.

II. ADAPTATION TO AUDIENCE

one which is

The persuasive speaker seeks to adapt his message to his audience. One who knows his message but not his audience is not likely to reach them with his message. When a speaker is planning for a given occasion, he should ask himself these questions: What does my audience already know about my subject? What do they usually think and talk about? What can I use of their knowledge as an illustration of my own?

Henry Ward Beecher was a master of persuasive discourse. When he lectured in the British Isles to gain support for the Northern cause, he showed that he understood this principle perfectly. When speaking in Glas

gow, where laborers were interested in building blockade runners, he pointed out the evil effects of slavery upon labor; but, when speaking to a cultured audience in Edinburgh, he dealt with the philosophy and history of slavery.

III. SENSE OF UNITY IN THE AUDIENCE

The persuasive speaker tries to create in his audience a sense of unity. He changes them from persons of varying purposes to a group with a common purpose. He may accomplish this in various ways. A very common method is to tell a story. Edgar R. Jones says in The Art of the Orator, "Once individuals are got to laugh together or cry together, they are in the speaker's hand; he has them bound to him with a cord of sympathy; he can sway them as one mind.”

Again, he may refer to personages who are revered by all or by a large proportion of his audience; such as Washington, Lincoln, or Christ. He may appeal to ideals which all human beings have in common, such as selfinterest, freedom, honesty, chivalry, duty, patriotism, love of home and family. It is best to begin with as high motives as possible and lead to higher ones. The average man, although he may at times be secretly governed by sordid motives, yields more readily to the speaker who appeals to motives that are generally commended.

Conclusion. In this chapter we have learned: (1) that the persuasive speaker has the right attitude toward himself, his subject, and his audience; (2) that he adapts his message to his audience; and (3) that he creates in his audience a sense of unity.

Exercise I.

topical outline.

1. High motives reason.

Read the chapter and be able to recite from the

Exercise II. Re-read Dickens' speech (Reading Lesson III, page

54) and Kipling's speech (Reading Lesson X, page 220) and find as many illustrations as possible of points mentioned in this chapter.

Exercise III. Read the following speeches of St. Paul in the New Testament and make a list of their persuasive points. To the Athenians (Acts, xvii: 22-32); before Agrippa (Acts, xxvi).

Exercise IV. - Prepare a speech (of not more than four minutes) which has a persuasive purpose. Consult the list of subjects for persuasive speeches (Appendix VII) for suggestions as to a topic. Use as many as possible of the suggestions given in this chapter.

Exercise V. Repeat the speech prepared in Exercise IV, but adapt it to an altogether different audience.

Exercise VI. ·

·Written Review. Be able to write in class upon any of the following topics:

1. Personal Introductions and Conclusions.

2. The Introduction as a Keynote.

3. The Emphatic Conclusion.

4. Attitude of the Persuasive Speaker.

5. Adaptation to the Audience.

6. Creation of a Sense of Unity in the Audience.

READING LESSON XI

ORATIONS

1. Speech by William Cullen Bryant as president of the day at a banquet of the Burns Club of New York, in celebration of the centenary of the poet's birth: 1

"On rising to begin the announcement of the regular toasts for this evening, my first duty is to thank my excellent friends of the Burns Club, with whom I do not now meet for the first time, and whose annual festivities are among the pleasantest I ever attended, for the honor they have done me in calling me to the chair I occupy an honor the more to be prized on account of the rare occasion on which it is bestowed. An honor which can be conferred but once in a century is an honor indeed. This evening the memory of Burns will be celebrated as it never was before. His fame, from the time when he first appeared before the world as a poet, has been growing and brightening, as the morning brightens into the perfect day. There never was a time when his merits were so freely acknowledged as now; when the common consent of the literary world placed him so high, or spoke his praises with so little intermixture of disparagement; when the anniversary of his birth could have awakened so general and fervent an enthusiasm. If we could imagine a human being endowed with the power of making himself, through the medium of his senses, a witness of whatever is passing on the face of the globe, what a series of festivities, what successive manifestations of the love and admiration which all who speak our language bear to the Scottish poet, would present themselves to his observation, accompanying the shadow of this night in its circuit round the earth. . . . Well has our great poet deserved this universal commemoration for who has written like him? What poem descriptive of rural manners and virtues, rural life in its simplicity and dignity-yet without a single false outline or touch of false coloring — clings to our memories and lives in our bosoms like his 'Cotter's Saturday Night'? What humorous narrative in verse can be compared with his 'Tam o'Shan

1 From Chronicle of the Hundredth Birthday of Robert Burns, edited by James Ballantine. Edinburgh and London, 1859.